Introduction

In 2016, for the first time, the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) and the Society for the Advancement of the Science of Digital Games (SASDG) partnered and decided to jointly host a  unprecedented gathering of game-related researchers. The result was the largest ever academic conference on games research: the 1st JOINT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF DIGRA AND FDG. The conference took place in Dundee, Scotland (1-5 August) and included 6 parallel tracks: Artificial intelligence, Game technology, Game design, Game production, Play studies , interaction and player experience, and Game criticism and analysis. In total, there were over 400 submissions, each of which was double-blind peer-reviewed by, on average, three reviewers. These figures, combined with the conference logistic constraints, meant that the program committee was faced with the unenviable task of having to select only the best submissions for each track. Eventually, 188 papers were accepted for presentation, leading to an overall acceptance rate of 47%. As part of the submission process, authors were asked to indicate their interest and willingness to submit a revised version of their papers to ToDiGRA. From those, we sought the most representative highlights in each track and invited, for this special. issue, the ten papers with the highest scores given by the anonymous reviewers during the conference review process. Out of these, nine
accepted the invitation and, following an additional round of anonymous peer review, there are now eight. articles in this issue. This special issue of ToDiGRA features a fine selection of polished papers from the joint DiGRA/FDG 2016 conference that together.